China is the third-largest country in the world with an area of 9.5 million sq km. The land surface is like a staircase descending from west to east. At the top of the stairs, in the southwest, are the inhospitable plateaus of Tibet and Qinghai averaging 4500m above sea level. At the southern rim of these plateaus is the towering Himalayan mountain range with peaks averaging 6000m high (40 peaks rise 7000m or more). Mt Everest , known to the Chinese as Zhumulangmafeng, lies on the Tibet- Nepal border.

Melting snow and ice from these and other highlands of western China provide the headwaters for many of the country's largest rivers: Yellow River (Huang He), Mekong River (Lancang Jiang), Salween River (Nu Jiang) and Yangzi River (Chang Jiang). At 6300km, Yangzi River is Chi- na's longest, and home to the Three Gorges  and the controversial Three Gorges Dam Project . Its watershed of almost 2 million sq km - 20% of China's land mass - supports 400 million people. Used throughout China's history for trade and navigation, the Yangzi River's advantages have been offset by flooding, which periodically inundates millions of hectares and destroys hundreds of thousands of lives.

Yellow River, about 5460km long and the second-longest river in China, is the birthplace of Chinese civilisation. The third great waterway of China, the Grand Canal, is the longest artificial canal  in the world. It once stretched for 1800km from Hangzhou in south China to Beijing in the north. Today, however, most of the Grand Canal is silted over and no longer navigable.

Heading north and down a step from the plateaus of Tibet and Qinghai lies Xinjiang's Tarim Basin, the largest inland basin in the world. Here you'll find the Taklamakan Desert, China's largest, as well as the country's biggest shifting salt lake, Lop Nur in Xinjiang. (Lop Nur was also the site of China's nuclear bomb testing.) The Tarim Basin is bordered to the north by the lofty Tian Shan . Also in Xinjiang is China's hot spot, the low-lying Turpan Basin , known as the Oasis of Fire'.

East from here, the third step drops to less than 1000m above sea level. These are the largely featureless plains of the Yangzi River valley and northern and eastern China. These plains are the most important agricultural areas of the country and the most heavily populated. Keep in mind that two-thirds of China is mountain, desert or otherwise unfit for cultivation.